


study in light

by weatheredlaw



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: He tells you things, things you don’t know what to do with. They fall out of his mouth and into your open hands, and you fumble them.





	study in light

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a. while ago. found it as i was cleaning out my google docs. hope the experimental style works for this!

          (you are kravitz)

And you are listening to him _breathe._

You don’t _need_ it — it’s an indulgence granted to you by circumstance. You could take whatever form you’d like, but this is the one you choose. A man, who looks a lot like the man you used to be —

                    in bed, with an elf (who looks a lot like the elf you first met, but the variation   
                    is subtle, a careful thing he has grown, and you lay next to him, wondering   
                    why he chose one form over another, seemingly unaware you will have to   
                    answer the same question about yourself)

He whispers your name and draws you close. One eye opens.

“Are you watching me sleep?”

          (A quick shame, but he kisses you and dissolves it.)

“It’s fine,” he says. “Sometimes I watch you, too.” His hand has freckles on it, dark spots on darker skin, pushing up against the swell of bone at the knuckle, raised to your level, easily licked at and traced with the sharp edge of your teeth.

                    (you are keenly aware of how much you belong to him, and how much he   
                    is yours)

 

* * *

 

He tells you things, things no other person says the way he does.

So _cavalier_ about it all, just a very simple, “I’ve never been in love before,” and it _hits you._

 _Gods_ , should it hit like this?

                    Should it slap you, _hard_ , and grab you by the _throat_ and wreck you like this?

Short answer: _Yes._

Long answer: Why shouldn’t it? You understood the consequences the first time you humored him, when your hands were clay-sticky and gray, when you realized he looked _dashing_ even under fluorescent lighting.

His words slam into you, but he is standing at the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes by hand because anything else would be too easy —

                    (he does this with apples, too, one long, endless peel from start to finish   
                    and you are impressed, yes, but it reminds you of the way he drags his   
                    tongue against your throat, in one aching stroke, collarbone to jaw, just before he   
                     _bites_ — )

(and he tells you things, things no other person should say the way he does —

 _sometimes i miss dying, and i don’t know why_ )

 

* * *

 

He tells you things, things you don’t know what to do with. They fall out of his mouth and into your open hands, and you fumble them.

          “I’m afraid,” he says, but he won’t say of what. And you are not so well acquainted with   
          his less obvious emotions that you can read into this.

So you start trying to name his fears.

                              (he doesn’t like this. he says so. loudly.)

Taako never shouts, but there are days when his voice pitches up, bucks against the roof and echoes in your palms as you try to contain him, but you realize this is the one thing he hates/fears the most —

_containment  
                                        restraint_

                    And so you stop.

This is of course when you realize that containment is not what he fears most at all.

What he fears most is —

                              losing. You. Magnus. Merle. Lup.

          You realize his anger with Lucretia is half that he thinks he’s lost her. But you don’t know   
          how to say this. So. You don’t.

                              (you will feel this a lot — things you could have said and didn’t, things you said   
                              too late. it is part of being in love, and it has been a thousand years and a   
                              thousand more since you felt that, hasn’t it?

 _Hasn’t it?_ )

 

* * *

 

It will weigh on you.

It will weigh so heavy in the night, when you lay in bed and think about the sleep you are losing that you don’t even need. You will clutch the endless robes of your mother and whisper her name, and ask her to tell you what to do.

You briefly wonder — does a goddess know how to love? You ask this of Taako, and he laughs, and buries his face against your neck and kisses you and says —

          “Probably. _Divinely._ ”

                    You swoon. His touch _thrills_ you. His hands tug at you. He says, “I love you.”

He says it, says it in a way no one ever does, no one ever _has_ —

And you wonder, still, if a goddess can love. You wonder, still, if you were _made_ to love. It takes nothing to say it, but shouldn’t it take _everything?_ Shouldn’t your capacity for love consume you? Shouldn’t your heart fire openly, shouldn’t you be wounded and anxious all the time?

 _Gods above_ , shouldn’t love be _hard?_

          “No,” he says. “Love is easy.”

                    You almost ask, _How do you know?_ But — you know. It’s a stupid question.

                              He spent a hundred years loving. Love was all he had.

                                        It’s just different with you. Isn’t it?   
                                        Gotta be bold enough to admit that.   
                                        Gotta be strong enough. Gotta be   
                                        brave enough. Gotta _be enough._

                              And he tells you something, something only he can say the way   
                              he does:

                                                  “You _are_ enough.”

          And, funny thing: you believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ weatheredlaw


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